Ten years ago, Gov. Rick Perry spoke at a border summit held in South Texas. It's a safe bet that few remember his comments that day, back in the halcyon days before the war on terror.

But some Texas tea party adherents have dusted off the Perry text and found an objectionable reference to a legislatively required study of "the feasibility of bi-national health insurance," or coverage of both U.S. and Mexican residents along the border. Not to mention some other friendly gestures Perry made that day toward Mexico, including a boast about how he'd just signed a Texas DREAM Act that granted in-state college tuition rates to the children of illegal immigrants who are academic achievers. "Texas took the national lead in allowing such deserving young minds to attend a Texas college at a resident rate," he said. Perry also spoke glowingly of how the Legislature in 2001 passed a children's Medicaid simplification bill and increased funding for Medicaid and the Children's Health Insurance Program.

"More checking under the hood needed before we buy the car," tea party activist JoAnn Fleming of Tyler wrote this week. A blogger weighed in with similar criticism in this post on RedState.com. Alice Linahan, a North Texas tea party activist and media aggregator, circulated the comments. She later told me in an email, "Rick Perry is like most politicians right now. They are beholden to their large donors vs. the voters who put them in office."

You can be the judge of Perry's remarks, available here on the governor's office website.

"A bill was passed by the Legislature that authorized a study to look into this issue, which ultimately concluded there were numerous barriers to accomplishing that idea, and the Legislature took no further action on this concept," she said.

Perry's speech, delivered a few weeks before the Sept. 11 terrorist attack, brimmed with optimism. He talked about NAFTA, hailed the then-new administration of Mexico President Vicente Fox (above, AP photo from 2004) and extolled the prospect of peace and prosperity along the U.S.-Mexico border. It sure seems like a distant era ...